#1 ThCB (The Compassionate Budtender) The Newbie’s first step to learning about and using cannabis? Call it Cannabis.

Legalization is coming. Are you ready to join the cannabis revolution?!

Time keeps on slipping … slipping…slipping… into the Future…
ARE YOU READY FOR LEGALIZATION, CALIFORNIA? Because it is upon us. So if you’re one of the holdouts who refused to get your medical cannabis recommendation, despite the myriad reasons you could have before now (and the other symptoms for which marijuana [*] provides relief), welcome to the new world!

Maybe you’ve found your way to this post because you’re a little older and achier — my, how two decades take their toll on these lovely bodies we have; maybe you didn’t do it until now because you were worried about what your parents/boss/fraternity brothers/neighbors/pastor would think of you and now you don’t give AF. Good for you! Or maybe, like the vast majority of the droves of patients we budtenders see every. single. day, you’ve become disillusioned by the wonderful world of western medicine and the insidiousness of our pals at Big Pharma. Whatever the case, we welcome you. We may razz you a little for being so pigheaded, but part of using cannabis is taking ownership of who you are, and we’re so glad you’re now part of our family.

Welcome to cannabis. I must tell you: you’re a bit behind the curve. First thing’s first: [*]Call it cannabis. Marijuana is so eighty years ago! It was the label those jokers in the 1930s slapped on the plant to frighten people about the medicine that they themselves, and everyone else in the world, had been using for thousands of years. It was in the Pharmacopia! It was in pharmacies, mostly in tincture or powder form. It had always been part of our medicine!

There’s a book you should read, that might just blow your mind, by the late, great, Jack Herer. (There’s also a lovely, energizing sativa cannabis strain named after him you may want to try at some point.) *Insider Tip* It’s pronounced like carer. Because he cared about this medicine.

Jack Herer was a champion of cannabis. Not unlike you, he started off as a skeptic — nay, a critic (yep!) of cannabis — and a Republican (hard to believe, I know!). But, at the suggestion of an awesome woman, (anyone know this lady?), he smoked it and his entire life changed. It could happen to you. You should buy his book. It’s an easy read. It was given to me by my manager Rick when I started in the medical cannabis industry four and a half years ago. It’s called The Emperor Wears No Clothes, and it’s about the racist and systematic discrediting of the cannabis plant by the same institutions that continue to pollute our planet and our bodies to this very day. You should buy it in your local bookstore, or even on Amazon, but if you simply cannot, in the loving spirit that is cannabis, Jack’s widow has put it up for free because Jack wanted everyone to be able to read it. So go. Read it. Now. To be continued…